


Forget the Bad Blood Between Us Both

by reminiscence



Category: Gundam SEED
Genre: Amnesia, Divergent Timeline, Gen, ffn challenge: diversity writing challenge, word count: 500000-99999 words
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 20,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8921815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reminiscence/pseuds/reminiscence
Summary: Athrun thought he'd killed Kira, but waking up on the beach after the explosion, he finds the other gravely injured, but alive. And when Kira wakes up without his memories, Athrun thinks he might have been given another chance with his best friend...but after Miguel and Nicol, and everyone else, can Athrun put that behind him? Can ZAFT? And what if Kira's memories return?





	1. Driftwood

He was deafened by the explosion he'd caused himself. It was laughable really, but moreso it was a relief. That way, he couldn't hear Kira scream – if he had screamed. Maybe he hadn't had the time to scream.

He certainly couldn't have had the time to escape. Athrun hadn't, even though he'd tried. Or, maybe…

_Maybe I don't care_ , he thought, feeling the waves wash over his legs and the sand dig into his cut stomach and thigh and all of it scratching at wounds, and stinging…

And all the time, there was a strange feeling in his ears. An echo, where screams, and tears maybe, should be. Other people, crying over a death – no, two. He distantly remembered a fighter plane, one of those easily detachable weapons flying through the air and slicing through it with more finesse than gunfire or missiles could ever accomplish.

Because explosions left time for tearing and crushing and burning and warping – and screaming.

The only scream he'd heard when the fighter plane and its pilot split into two was Kira's.

His lip twitched. That might have been a pathetic attempt for a smile. Involuntary. Unintentional. Just like he'd never intended for things to come to this.

_I bet Kira didn't either_. No matter how many times, how many battlefields, they'd screamed at each other at. How many times they'd clashed: armour against armour, sword against sword or gun against gun. How many times they'd faced each other with _that damned stupid war_ standing like a brick wall between them.

_'I thought you hated the whole idea of war.'_

Past echoes. Words that had come to bite him time and time again. If he hadn't hated it, he wouldn't be in the situation he was now: bloodied and stinging and freezing from the waves that washed over him and cut off from the world.

And what would he do if anyone found him anyway? His mother was dead. Rusty was dead. Miguel was dead. Nicol was dead. Kira was dead. Athrun himself was probably heading that way too. The stinging was starting to fade. He couldn't feel the sand at all anymore. If it was still there…

But why wouldn't he still be there. It would take a while for anyone to go out looking for him. Nicol would have hurried them, if Nicol was still there.

_Nicol is dead. Because of me. My weakness._

And it looked like that same weakness: being too late, too slow – was going to kill him now.

_I avenged you, Nicol. I killed Kira_.

Shouldn't he be happy, he wondered? He didn't feel it. Should he be sad? He didn't feel that either; just numb. Maybe it was because he'd been filled with such rage before. That now that it had all drained out of him, he was emptied, hollowed out.

And with his eyes closed and his ears shot, there was nothing to distract him from that hollow shell.

But even in hollow shells there was a noise: that echo that captures the world they lie within. But he couldn't even hear that: not the ocean or the breath of air or the squawking of seagulls above them. Not gunshots or metal against metal or static and cries and shouts that were the silence on a battlefield.

Not even the sound of his own heartbeat that told him he was still alive.

**.**

The scene had died. Where before they'd watched fighters in the sky missiles and explosions and rising smoke, there was now the smouldering air trying to return to its pristine blue. And perhaps it was the only thing around them capable in doing so. Even from their carrier they could see the damage that had been done to the island nature: the trees that had been mowed, the cliffs that had been battered and beaten down…all for no reason save being there, in the way.

And now the trees were dead: so many it would take nature some years to grow new ones to replace them. And the rocks? Those were many thousands of years of work that the earth on its current state wouldn't survive to see restored.

Earth's destruction was just one of many ways to end the war. They were another: the youth with dreams who put them on the line to serve their people, and their freedom. A world that had rejected them. Been repulsed by them. Slaughtered them – and driven them away from the earth and in to space.

For Dearka, he had only ever known space before chasing the Archangel and its Strike down to earth. But even those fleeting moments in the battlefield before his surrender had imprinted on him, and those were the images he saw as he was led away, hands tied behind his back, to the infirmary.

_Well, at least they treat their prisoners._

And he heard the last riveting explosion. And the silence and panic and tears that followed.

_'Tolle is… Kira is…'_

He hadn't a clue who Tolle was. One of the Naturals no doubt. Kira on the other hand…he knew that name. He'd heard Athrun mutter it in so many tones: sad, desperate, pleading – hating.

An old friend, he had never wanted to meet in such a place. Never _expected_ to meet in such a place.

_I don't know whether to call this a small world,_ he mused, _or a stupid one._

Because they were only supposed to be fighting Naturals. Not other coordinators. But when that coordinator went and killed his own kind – Miguel, Commander Waltfeld, Commander Morassim...Nicol.

_He means nothing to me._ Dearka stared at the grey ceiling. _But he sure as hell meant more than that to Athrun._

His eyes narrowed, as though he'd be able to see right through it to the outside world.

_I didn't think you had it in you to kill someone who used to be your friend, Zala. But I hope you did_.

Because the alternative meant that, from the scraps that had floated by to him, that Athrun was caught in that explosion as well. Or instead.

_Well, if that's the case… Yzak, it's all you now.'_

He chuckled. He couldn't quite help it. As though it was a mix of exhaustion and implausibility – because surrendering to the Naturals? That was like the most demeaning thing a soldier could do, offering themselves us on a silver platter for the enemy.

Then again, Dearka honestly didn't see how dying by the blade or gunfire of the enemy was any better.

**.**

The Archangel watched the scattered pieces of metal sink into the ocean.

They'd taken off, despite the protests to most on board. And it was understandable. To the younger ones, it was abandoning two friends. To the slightly older and even more slightly experienced, it was the knowledge of leaving behind the shield and sword that had gotten them to this point. To the eldest and most experienced of them all – who, in retrospect, were just as young and green as the university students that had volunteered after Heliopolis...they could only wonder how many more senseless sacrifices would be made before something gave.

Tolle, and Kira – neither of them should have even been _on_ a battlefield – and now they were being left on one.

_If they're still alive, that is..._

Murrue shook her head. That was a depressing thought, despite how sensible it was. There were few things that could cause them to lose contact with the Skygrasper Two and the Strike during combat. There were few things that could cause bits of machine to be slowly sinking into the ocean –

But they could hope. Most of it were generic ZAFT combat suits. Typical olive green. Some of it was red. Neither the Skygrasper Two nor the Strike were red, though the Aegis was.

_You might have gotten another one of them, Kira._

Though she doubted that thought would make Kira any happier than he'd been when he doused the Blitz.

_And their pilots are just children as well._

It seemed strange. At long last the tides were returning to them. They'd always had the Strike, but for a long time that had been the only edge they had. Now The Blitz was destroyed, they had a second air combat vector and a pilot, however young and green, piloting it. Not that she felt any more comfortable with Tolle out on the battlefield than she did Kira. Less, because Kira had been on the battlefield many times before. It was Tolle's second launch.

_But that doesn't make a difference in this world._

After all, the Archangel had taken off green behind the ears as well, with an equally inexperienced crew, an engineer as its Captain. And it was still flying. While so many chasing them or protecting them were dead.

_I guess that's all we're trying to do. Keep flying_. _Finish this task._

Funny thing was, they'd lost the Strike. And she really couldn't care less about that.

'The Atlantic Federation will be just as pleased to have the Buster,' she said aloud, partially to reassure herself, and partially to reassure her company. Natarle was straight backed as she always was, staring into space – or rather, staring through the window into the water and the remnants of carnage sinking into it. Mu was swivelling slowly in his chair, and Murrue might have scolded him for that on a happier day.

'Oh, I'm sure they'll find plenty of reasons to complain,' he said, to the captain's assertion. 'Just like they won't be too thrilled about us putting a Coordinator into the pilot's seat.'

'That could not be helped,' Natarle snapped, turning around. 'Surely our superiors will see it was our only hope for escape and survival.'

Mu seemed to have a different opinion about those superiors, but at Natarle's glare, he held his tongue. 'Not much to look forward to anyhow,' he said. 'We'd better hope for a smooth sail on to Alaska, considering we're down to a mobile suit we can't use and a fighter plane that's in no sure flying condition.'

Murrue closed her eyes. 'We'll make it,' she said. 'There isn't far to go now, and if the Aegis was...' She hesitated, then omitted the "also" that came to her tongue and pressed on. '...destroyed, with the Buster and its pilot with us, our pursuers are left with only one of the stolen mobile suits.'

Mu snorted. 'Considering the Duel destroyed a lifeboat full of evacuees, I wouldn't call that a blessing. I'd much rather deal with that kid.' He jerked a thumb in the direction of the infirmary.

Natarle frowned. 'In any case, our objective hasn't changed.'

'I know.' Murrue sighed. 'Truthfully, what's bothering me the most isn't how hopeless this might now be.'

'The kids.' Mu nodded. 'I get ya. The way that Miriallia was –'

He broke off when Natarle sighed – a sigh unlike Murrue's from earlier. 'Permission to drop status to half watch,' she said.

Murrue looked at her a moment, before nodding. 'Permission granted,' she said. 'And get the kids to take a break as well. We can handle things for now.'

Though there wasn't a whole lot to handle. Already, the bits of metal that had spread out to see had sunk or been passed. Blue stretched around them now: the clear sky that said nothing of the sorrow they were leaving behind. Hopefully, on the other side, another vessel would be approaching: the aid they'd requested, the plea they'd sent out...

She was sure Cagali would turn the tides, even if Natarle turned out to be right and Murrue wrong. But still, what they would find on the island remained to be seen.

Maybe it wasn't like a soldier, or a captain. But she couldn't help but hope that Kira and Tolle were okay.


	2. Empty Seashells

'So we're just going to leave without them?' Yzak cried.

The gazes he received in return were unsympathetic. 'We have our orders, sir,' one said stiffly.

The scowl that formed on Yzak's face seemed more threatening with the scar twisting to accommodate it. 'Athrun and Dearka wouldn't just be taken down by some _Naturals_.' _But Nicol was,_ a betraying little voice in his mind pointed out. _The Strike pilot managed to take him out. And Miguel too._ He ignored that. 'We didn't earn these red uniforms for nothing.'

The green-clad officers stared at each other. Some felt threatened; others were older, more experienced and also more disapproving. 'That red uniform is also a statement that you can make cool, _logical_ decisions on the field,' one snapped – the one who'd commanded the submarine while all the red-coats were piloting their mobile suit. With Yzak back, he was technically of higher rank in command – but that rank wasn't of much help when the order to retreat had come from the Homeland.

Yzak opened his mouth, realised that, and shut it again. The tense atmosphere in the control room mellowed.

'Sir,' another green uniformed officer spoke up. 'Might I suggest you prep the Duel? You've been ordered to launch upon arrival at the base.'

'Yeah. Right.' He glanced out the window. They'd long since submerged, and the broken machines that both sides had littered the sea with had sunk around them.

Sure, he'd joked about the Zala team winding up a failure, but not quite like this.

'Heh.' He snorted. 'At least the Strike's gone.'

The sting of not being able to destroy the mobile suit himself was small, with no Athrun to glare at and no Dearka to laugh at the pair of them – or pull them apart.

At least the Strike was gone, its fangs cut so it couldn't tear through any more of their number.

'And the moment you return to space, Archangel, I'll be waiting for you.'

The last of the debris faded out of sight as the submarine dove even deeper into the sea.

**.**

The sound of seagulls had woken Athrun again, this time more lucent and without the sensation of water in his ears. His body was stiff as he tried to move, and his eyelids glued – no doubt from the salt that had soaked his clothes and his skin.

It seemed the tide had receded – or else with the return of his hearing he'd lost something else: the sense to feel water washing over him.

He opened his eyes, staring at the deep blue sky hanging overhead. No, he hadn't lost that sense. The water was lapping back and forth, not quite reaching him.

And above him, the sun shone brightly, banishing the remaining darkness from dreamless sleep and dragging him back to life.

Athrun sighed a little, then closed his eyes. Maybe he could slip back into there, before feelings and thoughts and grief all wormed their way in. But it wouldn't work. Now that his awareness was returning there were too many material things to distract. The seagulls crying in the air. The scratchiness of this hardened clothes and stretched tight skin. The cracked glass of his helmet digging into his temple. The handgun digging into his side. And the sound of laughter, from somewhere far away, echoing in the waves.

They were all material things, because he didn't, or maybe couldn't, think of anything else.

_Laughter..?_ he wondered, suddenly realising it was an odd sound to hear. Almost foreign. When was the last time he'd heard someone laughing. Nicol, he thought. Returning from their day off at the Homeland, Nicol teasing him about falling asleep at that concert...

_You wanted to play a real concert some time,_ he remembered with a pang. _You never got the chance, and I couldn't even stay awake to listen to that one._

But at least there was something now. The Strike. The pilot. Both of them –

Desire struck him. A desire to see the pieces of both with his own eyes. For his own closure, or perhaps so he could believe it, affirm it and then –

And then what? Return to the Homeland to nurse his wounds and mourn? To the battlefield, where he'd make new friends and new enemies and maybe even meet another friend on the wrong side? Offer himself up to the Naturals just so they could know what he'd done to their soldier, to his best friend –

Athrun shook, then gritted his teeth and forced those thoughts away.

_Get up. Nothing will come from lying there._

And, slowly, carefully, he did exactly that.

**.**

On another shore, several children ran under the seagull's calls. For them, that meant the fighting had moved all. All that gunfire and explosions that had ripped through the air, causing them to huddle together inside their home, where there were blankets and company and, they hoped, safety as well. Where they could turn away or be pulled away from the windows that were too frightening and too telling and they could only listen to the sounds of fighting outside and hope it wasn't coming too close to them.

But now it had all passed on, and they'd crept out to survey the impact. Some of the kids got stuck by the trees: by the carnage of wood and bark and broken branches that collapsed on soil and sand. Others went as far as the wet sand the ocean reached for: the few bits of metal that lay there, and the black ash.

They were careful. They were scared – but, like the children they were, they were also curious. They kicked at the metal. Some, who'd lost their families to the war, kicked the remnants into the tides. They came across no torn limbs, no bodies...and maybe they didn't think they would, but it was a thing to be grateful for nonetheless.

But then the group turned a corner, with another group, leading (or perhaps being led by) a man with a cane, some ways behind. There was more to see on that beach: an almost whole machine that sat, broken and dead, against a rock.

And walking towards it was a boy, almost a man, in a red pilot suit.

'ZAFT!' one of the boys exclaimed. Another shushed him and pulled him back. They crowded behind the rock formation and watched the pilot slowly limp his way to the machine.

'Is that his, you think?'

'He's hurt. Shouldn't we tell –'

'You're going to help a ZAFT pilot?!'

'But he's hurt!'

The babble went back and forth, slowly rising in volume before one had enough sense to quieten them again.

'Someone go and get Reverend Malchio.'

They stared at each other. It made sense, but they were safe at that distance and behind cover, and none of them really wanted to go and miss what might happen next. Like a movie they couldn't pull their eyes away from, no matter how boring or frightening or insignificant it might be.

Even the one amongst them who abhorred the name of ZAFT did not volunteer himself.

**.**

The Strike was easy enough to find: like a trophy sitting in the sand. He slowly trudged to it.

One foot dragged, and a hiss escaped with each step though no pain registered in his mind. His body had been disconnected from it, it seemed. Perhaps that was a good thing, otherwise pain would have been as much a gaoler to him as his soft heart.

And, of course, that soft heart was what was driving him now.

He made it to the Strike and touched a leg: the closest thing in reach. The surface had melted and then cooled. What had originally been smooth and strong was now bumpy – and fragile. A good swing of a sword would do away with it.

But it was already a broken machine. A relic.

And the leg meant nothing anyway.

He closed his eyes, then moved up the body, towards the cockpit – and stopped short as he saw the full artistry of what his machine had done.

There was no body half baked and burned to see, and he was grateful. He could imagine vividly enough with just the setting: the melted seat, the metal window that had opened by hungry explosive energy. Kira had probably been blown to bits and scattered on the beach.

He'd known that full well when he'd caught the Strike in the Aegis and activated the self-destruct. He'd known that full when he'd pressed that button and ejected himself. He'd known that full well when he'd seen the Aegis burst into orange and grey, its force throwing him into the air. He'd done it for that very reason.

But seeing the result brought him no joy. Just the beginnings of tears in his eyes – at which he stumbled away from the broken Strike, into the sand, and then away from that as well. Aimlessly wandering, the same direction it had taken to get to the Strike, only now it carried him further away. Why? he wondered. Maybe because he'd already been the other way. Maybe because there was something he could still find that way. Something in that slowly dimming, going out of focus picture. The pieces of Kira's body, strewn over the ground – that final, screaming proof that Athrun had killed him.

Or maybe just a way to forget that long nightmare, so it wouldn't bother him ever again.

**.**

The children huddled together around Reverend Malchio, following the strange ZAFT pilot staggering up the beach. Their whispers grew fewer as they pressed slowly on, and as they passed the first wet dot marring dry sand, it was only "is that blood?" or "is he crying?" that were exchanged.

Reverend Malchio said nothing; he just held as many hands as he could while leading them. Perhaps he could see something they couldn't, the children thought. Those things that only adults could see – or the things that only the blind could see, not distracted by all the other things that confused open, seeing, eyes.

They passed the machine. More broken trees. And then they came across something that caused the pilot to freeze in his tracks and the children to exclaim loudly – loud enough for the ZAFT pilot to hear them and turn with startled, pained eyes.

Several of the kids screamed when they realised the pilot had drawn his gun. All of them moved back, behind the Reverend if they could – but the Reverend was but one man. His frame was not enough to shield them all.

Especially not when he stepped forward, staff hitting the soil in soft, rhythmic, thuds. 'I am Reverend Malchio,' he said calmly.

The gun shook, as though undecided in its target. Sightless eyes regarded it. The children whispered, spelling the scene.

'I run an orphanage on this island. These are my children.'

He spread his arms. The children stayed huddled behind him.

The gun lowered. The children breathed sighs of relief. 'Now, what is troubling you?'

Dry lips opened. 'Kira.' He gave a little snort after that, tethering now that there was no threat or arm outstretched to balance him. 'He's dead.'

With a nudge from the caretaker a couple of the older kids, almost teenagers, inched forward. When nobody reacted to the motion, they gave the soldier a wide berth and checked what – or rather who, they realised, once they saw it was a person clad in a blue pilot suit and not a piece of machine, lay beyond.

'He's alive,' one who checked the body said.

The reverend smiled. 'That's good news.'

The red pilot laughed even as he swayed on the spot, though it seemed more a mix of derisiveness and hysteria as opposed to any sort of joy. 'He can't be. I killed him.'


	3. Approaching High Tides

Cagali's eyes were sweeping the small knot of islands before she could even make out any features of them.

'Be patient a little longer, Lady Cagali,' Colonel Kisaka implored.

'I know that,' Cagali snapped, eyes still glued to the window. They were getting steadily closer; green and brown were starting to take more meaningful shapes. 'It's just…it's Kira. And Tolle, too.'

The Colonel frowned. 'I suppose it couldn't be helped, spending so much time with them on the Archangel. But Orb is a neutral nation.'

'I know.' This time, there was a little less bite and more distraction in the tone. 'Orb will not invade another nation. Orb will not allow another nation to invade them. And Orb will not intervene in the conflicts of other nations.' She sighed. 'I am well aware of the principles of our country, despite…earlier transgressions.'

Joining the resistance against the Desert Tiger had been an impulsive act from an equally impulsive who had thought her father had betrayed those very principles. She knew better now: experiences and relationships gained through a loss of that principal fate but valuable to her growth and maturation nonetheless. The Desert Tiger – how she'd hated him, refusing to see the kindness in sparing lives and letting only buildings burn. Refusing to see the kindness in letting them flee from defeat with their tails tucked underneath.

The resistance hadn't been so noble. Anyone other than Andrew Waltfeld would have slaughtered them long ago. She saw that aboard the Archangel. Maybe even before that, though she shut her eyes.

They'd been forced open a tad by that unexpected visit to his living quarters. That discussion that had taken place in the living room. The feeling of a meaningless and yet inevitable fight to the death that followed him out.

_And then Kira had to kill him. Or die himself._

She understood then why her father tried so hard to stay away from war. Though she still could not accept it. All those people who fought on, fought _for_ something.

But Kira had become a friend. A _close_ friend. And Tolle had become a friend as well, even if Cagali had spent most of her time with Kira and Murrue… And before that, back in the desert, it had been Ahmed, who'd become so close.

Her fingers curled into a shaking fists as her eyes desperately searched. She didn't want _any_ more friends dying like that.

'The Strike!' she exclaimed suddenly, pointing. Its phase shift armour was done, but Cagali could still see its distinctive head.

The pilot dipped the plane, approaching to land.

**.**

The children were excited. Most of them chattered non-stop. "Blue isn't ZAFT, right?" "Is it Earth Forces?" "But he's a friend of the ZAFT guy, right?" "Maybe he's from Orb. They're blue, right?" Reverend Malchio had to shoo most of them into the living room where reports of other conflicts scattered about earth were shown.

The rest tried to patch the two injured up – but it quickly became apparent that the task was beyond them and the first aid they could give. They were a small island after all: a small privately owned island whose only three buildings were the orphanage, a little cottage on the other shore, and a little garage with a shuttle he used to visit the more neutral PLANTs and Earth Alliance lands for whatever reason. To deliver a speech, to visit old friends, to give a weighted opinion…to do his job as an envoy, when he was called.

But none of those places were hospitals, or indeed places with advanced medicine, and his children weren't doctors. What they could patch up were little scratches and bruises from playing on the beach or in the woods. Anything else was usually dealt with by the supply boats that came out once a fortnight.

Depending on who his two guests were and how badly off, it might not be wise to wait for those supply boats. He could sense…something between the pair of them. The one in blue, the one the other had called "Kira", had been unconscious since they'd found him, and the one in red had joined him not long after.

Though Reverend Malchio didn't need his eyes to know how the other's face had looked just before.

But whatever the reason, whatever had brought them to that point, he believed that being alive was good: a blessing, a chance to redeem the errors of the past and continue on. Whatever had happened, a second chance of life meant a chance to put all those things behind oneself, and move forward, on to another path. Perhaps even the right path, that one that had till then been an elusive one.

'The red guy's awake.' One of the children was at his arm suddenly, guiding him.

'I see,' he said, picking up his cane and allowing himself to be guided. A door opened and closed. The smell of antiseptic entered, and the whisper of a mostly unfamiliar voice saying "You're…"

'Reverend Malchio,' he reintroduced himself. 'You're at my orphanage on the Marshall Islands.'

**.**

Athrun woke to the muttering of children over the smell of antiseptic. It was a largely unfamiliar smell, since a Coordinator's disposition made it unlikely to contract infections from any source. But maybe they hadn't been used on him. When he lifted an arm a little, he found it bandaged tightly with some sort of gel coating underneath.

He didn't know or care much about earth medicine, but he was sure gel and volatile liquids didn't really work together.

'Hey, don't move that!'

He stilled, though the voice was young and impudent and reminded him of the less experienced cadets at the academy, thinking they knew everything and that they could boss the upperclassmen around until something came along and threw them for a loop. But the movement of his arm had caused a painful sting, and so he stopped that.

Footsteps scattered. Doors opened and closed. More words were exchanged. Someone fetching something maybe. A "don't leave _me_ with him". Someone being left behind.

Then silence fell, except for a cane knocking rhythmically on the ground, as though counting steps.

Athrun opened his eyes, vaguely recognising the figure that stood before him. 'You're…' That figure on the beach. Or the wood. With –

Had that been a dream? An angel of death saying the dead had returned.

'I'm Reverend Malchio,' the man introduced himself. 'You're at my orphanage on the Marshall Islands.'

The Marshall Islands. He hadn't strayed far at all then. In fact, that might be where the Strike and Aegis had gone down. He'd thought the sea would sweep him up.

'Your shoulders and back were covered in burns,' the man continued, 'and your left hip was bruised.'

Athrun blinked, registering that in an almost clinical manner. For a moment he questioned them, but the relevant pieces of memory weren't far from the surface. The explosion. Being blown almost into the sea. The broken Strike. The broken, _whole_ , body that had been Kira –

He jerked with a bit of a gasp. 'Kira!'

'The boy in blue? He's recovering.'

Athrun went limp on the bed. He felt like laughing. He'd killed Kira, but Kira was somehow, miraculously, still alive. They'd have to go through that all over again. What would it cost this time? Yzak? Dearka? Lacus? All of Kira's other so-called friends on the Archangel?

_Weren't we friends? Once?_

'You seem relieved,' Reverend Malchio said suddenly.

'Relieved.' His throat was still dry: his voice cracked. 'Why should I be relieved the person I tried my utmost to kill is still alive?'

'Tell me,' the man said instead, 'why is it you tried to kill that boy?'

'He killed Nicol.' The answer was at the tip of his tongue, bursting with fervour. 'He killed Nicol! And Miguel! And it's because of him the Archangel even made it out of Heliopolis, that we've chased it all this way and it _still_ managed to escape! It's because of him that Commander Waltfeld and Commander Morassim and all those other mobile suit pilots – he killed a damn reconnaissance GINN!'

He hadn't realised he'd risen from the bed until strong and gentle hands pushed him back down, the cane digging into his right shoulder and sightless eyes boring into his soul.

'But such is the nature of war.' And the Reverend sounded sad. 'An endless cycle of blood, and only the ones who put down their blades can find some sense of peace. Otherwise it is only more death, and sadness, and tears, that come.'

_Tears…_ His own cheeks were moist. He hadn't noticed that, until that very moment. His body was shaking too, tweaking the sensitive skin of his back, though bandaged and protected it was.

'This endless cycle of hatred brings nothing but more hatred in the end.'

'But…' The tears, the cries – they bubbled out, but so did the words, tangling like his fingers were digging into the bed sheets that covered him. 'He was my _friend_! He was supposed to be my friend!'

'Yes,' the Reverend sighed. 'Friends, and family, are the hardest of all to fight against.'

**.**

Reverend Malchio knew more now, but still only half the story. The ZAFT pilot was Athrun Zala – which was both good fortune and a pity. The Reverend was good friends with Seigel Clyne and his daughter – but Patrick Zala was a man whose principles he did not approve of.

But Lacus believed in Athrun. In her fiancé. She believed that, given time, he would find the right path himself. And perhaps he yet would. The words he had uttered at the bedside were neither false nor weakly true. They were words he believed, and abided by. Words he felt that, if everybody accepted, would have stemmed the flow of blood in this war.

But the masses were like Athrun now: eyes clouded by suffering and death and blinded to the cycle that it reinforced. They only saw a friend or a loved one or someone close to them fall, and someone on the other side holding the weapon.

The reasons on the other side didn't matter. Except they did. And if only people saw that, and sought it, then maybe tragedies like this one had nearly been (and could still be) could be avoided.

'How is young Kira doing?' he asked the room at large.

Several, somewhat varying, answers came. Much the same, was what Reverend Malchio gathered from them.

He was curious about Kira.

The exploits of the Strike and its pilot weren't unknown to him, though perhaps he didn't know as much as the militaries. But he knew more than the public, for his role as envoy between the two warring nations. He knew the remarkable potential that boy possessed: how quickly he adapted on the battlefield, how quickly his skills improved. Even more quickly than the average coordinator – one of the people who possessed greater power in the form of the SEED, and thus greater responsibility as well.

And with him lay the other half of the story Athrun had begun. Conflict only led to more conflict: hatred to more hatred. The seeds of the message had been sown but had not yet taken root. What he could do for now though was to break that chain of hatred wrapped around the two youths that had landed on his doorstep.


	4. Sunken Stones

The Marshall Islands. It was a quiet part of the Orb union: private islands for those who served, or had in the past served, as envoys between the two other great nations of the world. A place of peace, of neutrality.

They found the Strike on one of those little islands. Or what was left of it, scattered with bits of other machines and a rain of ash mixing into the sand.

The war had reached that far.

Cagali stood next to the Strike. Of all the debris, that was the only one recognisable. Almost whole. But it was broken still, and stuck. Stuck in the sand by force or heavy weight. _Probably both_ , she thought, looking at the ash that framed it.

'Lady Cagali.' One of the men who had come with them gestured from near the head. 'You might want to see –'

'No,' Colonel Kisaka snapped, but Cagali was already moving, climbing up the dune to see – and she stopped short at the sight. The cockpit had been blown open, metal curling around the edges to pull back the curtains on what was within.

Melted control board. Cracked glass. A seat bared – the leather she remembered coating it polished off and leaving only threads behind.

She stumbled back, before the absence pointed her towards a glimmer of hope. 'There's no body.' The words were a whisper at first, but they gave her strength as she repeated them. 'Kira! He must have been thrown somewhere!'

She spun around, eyes skimming the sand and the broken trees and the metal and ash scattered everywhere. There was nothing blue: no sign of that blue pilot suit Kira had always adorned. No sight of anything that even marginally resembled a body. Just a mix of purple and green and red –

'Lady Cagali!' Another called, gesturing further down the beach. She ran up, hopeful, feet making imprints in the grey sand. 'Kira?'

The man pointed at the head of another Gundam. She stared without regonition for a moment.

'It looks like another one of the Heliopolis mobile suits,' the man explained.

Then it clicked, and her eyes widened a fraction. 'The Aegis!' _Athrun… He did this?_

It was hard to imagine that boy she'd been stranded with on some deserted island had been responsible for that. Granted, he'd attacked her with a knife and pointed a gun at her, but she'd done worse. She'd shot down his cargo plane. She'd aimed a gun at him. Hell, she'd shot him – even if the shot had been an accident. But above and beyond that – he could have killed her any time, once she was defenceless and captive. He didn't have to help her. He didn't have to let the Archangel pick her up and take her away, despite his missing being to apprehend the both of them.

They might have become friends that night as well. They'd talked enough, certainly. About what they were fighting for, even though it had seemed back then that neither of them understood.

But now… Kira and Athrun had been fighting there, against each other. And both machines were damaged beyond function. The Aegis wasn't even all _there_.

Tears fell before she could even register them. _Have you killed each other?_ Her shoulders shook, even when Colonel Kisaka put a hand on her shoulder. _How – how could you both - ?_

**.**

Colonel Kisaka sighed heavily. He wanted to comfort the young princess, but there was little that could be said. False hope was a useless thing, especially now that she had grown, and had seen more of the harsh realities of the world. She'd seen Heliopolis destroyed, and so many people in the desert and the sea afterwards.

But even years of military experience didn't desensetise people to death and its possibilities. Especially not when it came to friends. He knew nothing about the pilot of the Aegis except he was of ZAFT, but he too had become familiar with the young coordinator from Heliopolis who had piloted the Strike.

Cagali was right; he could have been thrown, somewhere. But the chances of that were very slim. Worth looking into, but not worth banking one's hopes upon.

'I'm sorry,' was all he said.

Cagali nodded, making no move to rid her face of the tears. 'They really – killed each other, didn't they. The…Strike, and the Aegis.'

'We think,' one of the other men spoke up hesitantly, 'that the Aegis grabbed on to the strike and then self-destructed, taking both machines out.'

'The Strike was that big a threat to ZAFT that it was worth one of their own machines to take it out.' Colonel Kisaka sighed again. That was what power led to: killing and destruction until death. But power was the only thing they had, when words failed. It was one of the sadder things about Orb, that despite how they detested fighting they still had a military, and weapons, and advances on the warfront like this.

Lord Uzumi had been right after all, that creating those mobile suits for the earth forces would only lead to more conflict. Kisaka had trusted that; despite being military himself, he longed for that utopia Lord Uzumi was attempting to create. He admired those principles, that dedication. Yes, they needed strength, but just enough. Carrying the ideals to another place was better than bathing the flag ground in blood.

Cagali still didn't know of the Kusanagi, or the secret that hid in Morgenroeteand Kaguya. A destructive secret, but one essential for upholding their principles. The two most coveted things of Orb: their military strength that would tip the scales of war, and their mass driver. Things that could easily be destroyed and rebuilt, but would, despite their stance, eventually bring the enemy to their doorstep in war.

And yet, without them, their words would reach nowhere. Such was the cycle of war they fought desperately to escape.

'Colonel Kisaka.' One of the men tapped him on the shoulder and he turned around. 'We've found a…body, sir. On a nearby island.' He seemed to hesitate to use the word, and when Colonel Kisaka followed him to that island, he found out why.

It was just bits and pieces, chopped by either the blade buried into the cliffside not far from them or from the debris when the fighter plane exploded. A hand with a glove. A bit of an arm or leg with orange cloth. A head in a cracked helmet leaking blood.

The plane was in even more pieces, but Colonel Kisaka could guess what it was. The Skygrasper that Cagali had taken out a few times. From the message they'd received from Captain Ramius, Tolle had been flying the plane when they'd lost contact with it.

Now they knew why.

'Collect the remains,' he ordered. 'I'm sure the Archangel will want them.'

They left the Skygrasper, but recognising the blade as part of the Gundam series model, they took that as well.

**.**

Cagali was back on the ship when Colonel Kisaka returned on board. 'Did you find anything?' she asked, eyes bloodshot and wide.

'We found the Skygrasper and its pilot,' the Colonel replied. 'He was ripped into pieces when the plane exploded.

Cagali slumped back into her chair. 'I see,' she said, her tone flat. 'And Kira and A – the pilot of the Aegis?'

Colonel Kisaka caught the slip, but didn't question it. It wasn't the time to work out why Cagali might know the name of the Aegis' pilot. 'There was no sign of them on the other islands.'

'Not with us either. Just a bunch of useless scrap.'

'There's an orphanage on the island,' one of the other men continued, 'but when we knocked on the door, no-one came.'

'Hmm…' The Colonel stared into space. 'Given the circumstances, I don't think it's worth waiting for them. They have the means to contact Orb or the relevant authorities if they do find either of them wandering around.'

Of course, the chances of that were better for the ZAFT pilot if he'd triggered his own machine's destruction sequence, but unlikely for the both of them. Chances were, even if they did escape each other, they had just become victims of another blade or gun.

'Get ready to move out. And contact the Archangel to organise a rendezvous point.'

**.**

Murrue had declined the offer for rest in lieu of having her other offices take a much needed break. Though she was tired, the children were far more so and grieving much harder than her. After all, though she had been a ground worker prior to the destruction of Heliopolis, she had far more military experience than university students who hadn't even thought of being a part of the war until after they were tossed into it.

Natarle was resting. There had been no need for the both of them on the bridge, and if the ship entered combat status again, they'd need her. She'd tried to order Mu to rest as well, but since they were of equal rank despite her captaincy and he needed to oversea the repairs on his Skygrasper, she'd let him go.

After all, the Skygrasper was their only hope if they were attacked before reaching Atlantis. Even if they hoped the losses they'd caused in that last battle had crippled ZAFT as badly as it had the Archangel.

And so she was on the bridge with the rest of the initial Archangel crew when the call from Orb came.

And she was on the bridge when they received the news.

'We're making a detour,' she announced. 'Admiral, please plot a safe course to the coordinates on your screen. We're rendezvousing with the Orb rescue fleet.'

The officers looked at her, talking over each other in a mix of excitement and dread. "Did they find the kids?" "Are they okay?" "Are we picking up a body?"

Murrue sighed and raised a hand. 'Quiet down,' she said. 'They're meeting us almost on our path to Alaska, so we won't have to go far out of our way. And we're going to pick up the remains of Crewman Koenig. Ensign Yamato's status is still unknown.'

There was silence for a moment, before the whispers started again. "Damn, I'd really hoped they'd be okay." "So Ensign Yamato's still missing huh? Could he have survived." "Even Orb couldn't find out…"

She shut them out and dialled the ground crew. Mu had been just as worried about the kids, and, she'd rather break the news to him before tackling the other kids.

He turned on the video, and she didn't even start to speak before he read the news off her face. 'So Orb couldn't find them,' he guessed. 'Either that, or they're coming back in a casket.'

'They found the remains of Crewman Koenig,' Murrue sighed. 'Kira…they only found the Strike.'

'I see.' And Murrue heard the echo of a fist striking metal – the Skygrasper's frame, she assumed. 'This stupid piece of junk couldn't help either of them.'

'That stupid piece of junk defeated the Buster,' Murrue snapped, suddenly angry. 'And this is a war; you can't sacrifice your own life to help someone. If you'd turned away for a moment, the Buster would have shot you down.'

'I didn't mean it like that.' Mu, in contrast, sounded calmer. Almost soothing. 'It's just…those kids shouldn't have even been a part of this war, you know. I seriously doubt they were ready for this. Not like us, who knew when we signed up for the military, we signed up to die for what we fight for. They just signed up to help out.' He sighed again. 'We should never have let him into that plane.'

'He signed up to help,' Murrue reminded. 'So did Kira. So did the rest of them.'

There was pause. 'You're going to tell them, right?'

'Yes. Before we reach the rendezvous point at least.'


	5. Cast Adrift

'Orb was there.'

'Oh?' Commander Le Creuset raised an eyebrow beneath his mask. 'That's very interesting. And did they find Athrun or Dearka?'

'Not that we were told, sir.' The officer stepped forward, taking the curious question as permission for a more detailed report. Not that he had much to tell. 'They arrived a few hours after the Archangel was reported to have left the area and scanned all the islands in the vicinity. We sent a few GINNs to scout out afterwards, seeing as Orb might have taken them as a military threat if they'd arrived while Orb was still on the islands…' His voice trailed off.

'Perhaps wise,' Rau said with a bit of a wave of his hand. 'Best to keep friendly terms with Orb for the time being, despite their…interferences regarding the legged ship.' His lip curled a little. 'Though I wonder why Orb came? Did the Archangel call them?'

'Perhaps, sir. We have no way of confirming that.'

'Hmm…' He turned around, considering the ship they'd been chasing since Heliopolis. 'That ship is quite…interesting. I'm almost glad it's evaded us all this time.'

'Sir?' the officer asked in confusion.

'Ah, well.' He turned to the officer again. 'You say the GINN scouted the islands Orb had checked. What did they find?'

'Orb has taken the pieces of the Strike and what they could find of the Aegis,' the man replied, scanning the report he carried. 'As well as a fighter plane belonging to the Earth Forces.'

_Mu La Flaga_? He focused on that flimsy connection they shared. _No – I can still feel you, Mu…_ 'I wonder who the pilot was.'

'We found a few pieces of the body on our initial reconnaissance,' the man replied. 'We found Commander Zala's artefacts scattered across a few islands – probably caught in the waves and carried – so we don't know where he could have wound up after the Aegis exploded.'

'And the Strike pilot?'

'No sign of a body in the vicinity. '

'Hmm…' Rau said again. _Kira Yamato…and Athrun Zala. I wonder – what has happened to those two?_ 'And what of the Buster?'

'We found no trace of it, sir.'

'And the Archangel?'

'It looks like Orb is moving towards them.'

Rau laughed at that. 'Probably carrying the remains of that dead pilot. Don't they realise there is no time for such sentimentalities in war? Oh well.'

That just meant their arrival in Alaska would be further delayed.

'Are we to intercept the Archangel?' the officer asked. 'This might be our last chance to –'

'Our orders are to return to the Homeland,' Rau interrupted. 'The Archangel will port in Alaska as planned. They've lost the all-powerful Strike after all…though it's a shame we couldn't fetch it before Orb.'

'The machines originally belonged to Orb,' the officer said, before stiffening. 'I'm sorry sir, I didn't mean –'

'Quite the truth,' Rau said airily. 'Well, I imagine Orb gained quite a bit from that little experiment. Quite devilish of them, I must say.' He searched his desk for something. 'Are the repairs for the Duel done yet?'

'Yes sir,' the man replied.

'Good.' Rau found what he was looking for: a container of pills, small and cold in his palm. 'And the Vesaliusis ready to depart?'

'Just about, sir.'

'Good. We'll depart in the hour then. Dismissed.'

The officer snapped a salute and left, and Rau snapped the pill box open and shook out a pill. His hand had started to shake a little, but it didn't hinder him as he swallowed it with some water from his container.

Almost immediately, the tremor stopped. Rau smirked as he lifted a hand to his mask. 'Things _are_ getting interesting,' he commented. 'It is a shame about Athrun and Dearka – but part of me hopes that Kira Yamato still made it out.'

No-one was around to hear that potentially traitorous thought.

**.**

Back at the homeland, it was another unfortunate officer who brought the news to Patrick Zala.

'So there is no sign of Athrun.' Patrick Zala's face remained stoic.

'No sir. Or, at least, or reconnaissance GINNs were unable to find a trace, and Orb has not contacted us with any findings.'

'Unless they had one of our soldiers in their custody, they had no reason to.' He glanced at the photo on his desk; of his wife and son smiling in the fields of Junius Seven. That felt like a very long time ago. His wife was long dead. Athrun…might be dead too, but he couldn't find it in him to be more than just a little sad. 'His sacrifice destroyed an enemy that has caused us much grief.'

Yes, it was fine like that. He was a soldier, and that's how soldiers died. A small part of a greater scheme of things.

As long as they destroyed all possibilities of a tragedy like Junius Seven, the losses they incurred would be worth it.

'Sir?' the reporting officer asked.

'Don't you have work to do?' Patrick snapped.

'Uh…yes sir.' He snapped a salute and left, passing Siegel Clyne in the doorway.

'I heard,' the man said quietly.

'All the more reason to end this blasted war as soon as possible,' Patrick returned. 'How long are we going to let the Naturals get away with this?'

Siegel seemed to hesitate with his words. His position was markedly different to Patrick's, but a new raw wound made it difficult for such things to be easily spoken about. 'I would like to believe in a peaceful solution,' he said, finally.

Patrick threw his head back and laughed. 'While you do that, you've seen what abominations the Naturals have been creating. The Strike – all the damage it's done. We've lost four elite members to it and innumerable regular military. Not to mention Commander Waltfeld and Command Morassim, and the Gamow.'

'He brought my daughter to safety,' Siegel reminded.

Patrick snorted. 'One small kind act that's foolish in the context of war. He was just lucky Athrun was a soft-hearted fool.'

'Is that any way to speak of your son?' Siegel wondered.

'This conversation is over.' Patrick turned away without answering. 'I appreciate your condolences, Chairman Clyne. Give the same to your daughter.'

**.**

'I see,' was all Lacus said, when her father returned from the council bringing the bad news. The pink Haro that Athrun had made for her lay still on her lap. 'I would still like to believe he's – the both of them – are alive.'

'If they are, they may wind up fighting each other again,' Siegel pointed out.

'That endless cycle of fighting brings, in the end, no piece.' Lacus sighed. 'My hope is that they have both survived this battle, and can now see that. Eyes blinded by loss and grief that turns in to hatred… If only they can turn away from that sight and realise what it is we should really be fighting for.'

'Unfortunately, the council slips in the other direction.' Siegel slumped heavily on to a couch chair. 'Patrick Zala especially. His grief for his son has turned into anger so quickly.'

'And he is quite popular in the elections, is he not?'

'He is. But leaving the future of the PLANTs in a man like him will lead to one of our races being annihilated. Especially if the Naturals would come under the thumb run by an equally of an equally merciless man. 'And yet, we cannot blame their views. So much damage has been done in this war, it is hard to see the peaceful future we so desperately wanted for all.'

'All we can do is decide what is right,' Lacus said quietly, staring into the mechanical face of the pink Haro. 'And then just do what we've decided upon. Kira, and Athrun – I know they were both searching for that path, and neither of them was necessarily wrong, but – ' A tear slipped down her face, followed soonafter by more. 'It's just…sad. Two people who'd been such good friends having to fight to the death like that. I truly believe there is another way.'

Siegel got out of his chair to comfort his daughter. 'I do as well,' he said softly, 'Though I have never met this Kira, you speak quite fondly of him. And I know Athrun. It wasn't because of Patrick Zala I allowed him to become engaged to you after all.'

Lacus gave a watery smile. 'Yes, they are both good people. I can't really believe they'd destroy each other.'

Siegel said nothing to that. He knew the face of war a little better than his daughter, and though there was no reason to destroy hope that still existed and nor could he bring himself to do such a thing, he also could not give false hope. Athrum and Kira might be alive – they might have been rescued by the Earth Forces or, Orb who had, for whatever reason, not contacted them. Or they might have escaped together after the façade of destruction in some almost romantic endeavour, having come to their senses…

But more likely was they had both been killed and their bodies seized by the sea.

**.**

The Archangel met with the Orb fleet an hour away from Alaska, and the meeting was short and brief. Only the three highest officers went: Murrue, Mu and Natarle – and from Orb it was only Colonel Kisaka who greeted them in the Orb carrier's meeting room.

'Do you intended to do a burial at sea?' Kisaka asked.

'No,' Murrue said. They'd discussed this at length, but decided the best course of action was to return Tolle's remains to Orb. 'We would you to take him back to his family in Orb.'

Some of the officers were surprised at that. 'Why agree to a rendezvous then?' one asked. 'It would have been easier to go straight back to Orb.'

'We apologize,' Murrue said formally, before turning to Colonel Kisaka. 'You understand, those children deserved a say in this, and the chance to say goodbye.' She smiled, though sadly. 'It is events like this that drive home the fact that there are many people we might never see again because of war.'

Natarle's lips pursed a little; she thought the captain was being too sentimental, even though she too was especially saddened that it was a young and barely experienced life that was lost. 'It might go against standard military protocol,' she said, 'but we are an hour away from Alaska anyway. A sea burial would not be appropriate.'

'Normally the Earth Alliance would arrange for the body to be transported back to the person's home,' Mu added, 'but considering that was Heliopolis, it all depends on how sympathetic the top brass is feeling and the current state of affairs as to whether they'll agree to get the body to Onogoro island.'

'I understand,' Colonel Kisaka said. 'We'll take the body back to Orb to his family. I take it you'll want to call the kids?'

'Yes,' Murrue nodded. 'It seemed tactless to talk about such things in front of them, so they're still inside the ship.'

'That and there wasn't enough space on that little boat.' Mu stopped short at the glare from Natarle. 'What? It's the truth.'

'It's hardly appropriate,' Natarle muttered, turning away from him as Murrue gestured at him to take the boat back to the Archangel to pick up the rest – though, in truth, it was well appropriate. Little bits of humour to break the dark mood – because to drown in death was to be the next one to die. She'd said that herself, to Miriallia, after they'd lost contact with Skygrasper Two and the Strike. 'Children don't belong on a battlefield at all.'

'Kira is the same age,' Murrue said, without turning around.

Natarle blushed a bit, catching the contradiction. 'I'm sorry; I only meant – ' She cut herself off. She understood the soft spot Murrue, and Mu as well, had had for Kira. She'd just been blinder then, unable to see the child behind the Coordinator. 'I did mean Kira as well,' she explained, fumbling on the words a little. It was awkward to try and admit she was wrong, especially to someone whose views as a whole contrasted so dramatically with hers. 'And Cagali, and that ZAFT pilot… You don't think much about people as young as them on the battle in comparison to us, but when it's something like this…'

'It's the children fighting because of the mistakes of the adults. In a war stretching this far, it can't be avoided, it seems. Even we at Orb are training our youth to pilot the Gundams should we ever be attacked.'

'ZAFT did the same long ago,' Murrue sighed, remembering the boy she'd shot at Heliopolis, and the one who'd shot her. 'I wouldn't be surprised if there's some secret training facility for youths in the Earth Alliance too. For an alliance, we sure hold a lot of secrets from each other.'

She was thinking about Artemis, and the G-weapon project that their Alaska fraction had had any knowledge of.

'Trust is just another one of those things we forget in war,' Kisaka commented. 'But enough about this. Commander La Flaga has fetched the children.'

Murrue touched the pendant she always wore. 'Then it's time.'


	6. Safe Waters

The ship was unnaturally silent as Alaska's shore defence appeared as little blips on their radar. They weren't quite there yet, but soon they'd be close enough to contact the Alaska fleet. They'd already crossed into safe waters. The constant looking over the shoulder for ZAFT was beginning to fade. The shadow that had haunted them since Heliopolis was finally being forced away.

And when that shadow disappeared, other shadows emerged. The crew chattered excitedly. Some were ready for a discharge. Others wanted to see their families, or have time off. Most of them were ready to get off the Archangel, off the battlefield, and back to the sort of world they knew, the jobs they knew. Back to engineering and designing like they would have been doing if the Archangel's bridge crew hadn't met their end in the first wave. But that was all muted. They'd all lost too much, too soon. Even if one could never really be prepared for such losses.

Miriallia heard the chatter but did not join in. Instead, she sat curled in her bunk, the blinds drawn. Sai had left a tray of food for her, but she hadn't touched it yet. Normally, her stomach would have growled at the smell. But normally it would be Tolle teasing her with something or other, knowing she'd already eaten her fill but couldn't resist an extra bite of some delicious delicacy.

But Tolle was gone. And she'd just said farewell to the final bit of hope she'd had.

Selfishly, a part of her wished Orb hadn't found his body, hadn't brought it back as glaring, undeniable, proof. But that made no difference in the end. As soon as she'd lost contact with the Skygrasper Two she'd known what had happened. Even as she begged for him to reply back to her, to prove that fear wrong.

And when Kira had disappeared as well, it was the same thing.

She'd sat on the bridge too many times now. It had become so natural, watching the battlefield with sharp eyes, conveying commands from the ship to the fighters defending them and watching, always watching, how so many ships exploded into unrepairable bits within moments.

Tolle and Kira had vanished just like that. The rest of them could disappear like that as well. Blinked out before they have the chance to fight their fate. Just die, on this long journey that didn't seem to have a point in the end, simply because they were thrown into this situation, this battlezone…

Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she was well aware she'd made this choice, and she'd made it knowing any of them could die at any time. Like the refugees. Like Flay's father. Like Artemis. Like the eighth fleet. They'd gotten so many second chances already. They'd run out at some point.

They _had_ run out. And the fact that they'd crossed into safe waters didn't seem to matter.

Her thoughts cycled like that, leeching her energy and her life, disconnecting her from the vessel called a body – like she was a machine just like the Skygrasper and the Strike.

**.**

Everybody seemed to be avoiding Flay. Because of Kira, she knew. Because she wasn't like Miriallia and curled up in a corner sobbing her heart out. Because she was sure, so sure, that Kira wasn't dead.

_He couldn't be dead, because…there were still Coordinators in the world._

He'd promised her: promised he'd kill any enemy in his path, in _her_ path. Eventually that would sweep away every Coordinator, every potential cause of conflict in the world. Set the world back to how it was before. Except for one thing.

It wouldn't bring what she'd lost back. She knew that. And that was the true cruelty of war – that no matter how hard one strove for an ending, things in the middle just slipped away.

All they could do was stop other things from slipping away. And Kira was…Kira wasn't there, the weapon her finger had been coiled around, poised to shoot. His absence left her feeling vulnerable. Useless. Like she had no useful contribution to make other than be the spring that sent him off into the battlefield…

She suddenly wondered how her hands would look like holding a gun.

**.**

She hadn't slept at all since it happened. Finally Sai half-carried her distant body to the infirmary. Her mind was not opposed to the idea. Sleep, dreamless sleep, was just like another death. She could taste it. Those thoughts could stop cycling in her head. Settle down. She might be able to dream of them too: Tolle, and Kira, and those times they'd lost with Heliopolis.

He left her there, to look for the doctor. Left her with her dull fog and cycling thoughts.

'Finally. Doc!'

She jumped, albeit her reaction was sluggish – delayed. Her turn was even slower: stiff and mechanical.

The Coordinator, the pilot of the Buster, rolled over to stare at her.

'Oh,' he said, sounding disappointed. 'Where's the Doc?'

'He's…' Her voice sounded hoarse, and fragile. It made little sense, since she hadn't used it much since she'd crawled into bed. That was some hours ago. A day, maybe. She hadn't bothered to count. '…not here.'

That sounded about right. Sai had gone to look for him. Her brain slowly drew those connections, made that sense.

'Hmm…' The Coordinator rolled back on to his back. 'You're that girl who was crying before, weren't you?' He chuckled: a low and bitter chuckle. 'What's to cry about in this damn war?'

She didn't want to talk. She just wanted to sleep.

'I mean, going and getting myself captured by the damned Naturals just to save my own sorry but?' The Coordinator let out a huff. 'Yzak would kick my butt to Januarius. But I'd rather be alive and kicking at the end. Nothing out of becoming a figure on a paper.'

Miriallia stiffened. She wasn't sure why she was listening to begin with. It was like a spell she couldn't escape from. Couldn't avoid. _Stop talking,_ she willed. _Stop it._

But he didn't stop.

'And you guys have cost us quite a bit.' He twisted, then cursed, his hands tightly bound behind his back. 'I mean, has this ship even lost _anyone_? Hey? Why are you crying?'

Tears were slipping down her cheeks. She hadn't even realised it. She was shaking too. Fists tight balls by her side. She stretched her fingers. Curled them again. _Tolle… Kira… Tolle…_

'Some boyfriend of yours?'

She was lunging forward, back arched and fingers stiff like a feral cat's, before her brain quite caught up with her actions.

**.**

Maybe it was having someone to talk to. Maybe it was seeing a girl his age in who knew how long. Maybe it was just the situation – being held captive by the people he'd been brought up hating… He didn't really know, but the words just spilled out of his mouth before he quite thought of them, snatching cues from his surrounds.

Not necessarily the greatest cues, but he had to confess, he didn't have much experience with crying girls. They didn't usually come with military, and they never made it to the battlefield. Why the hell was there a girl like that on the Archangel, he had to wonder. A soldier who let herself get into such a state.

If he'd shut his mouth and just thought about, a few things would have made sense beyond that point. But he didn't. He never really did. He was like Yzak in a sense: words first and regrets later. Not like Nicol had been, always mindful of everybody's feelings – and look where that had gotten him in the end. Athrun too, except of late. He hadn't wound up any better.

Them four and Rusty. They'd studied together. Graduated together. Went on missions together – until Heliopolis, where everything fell apart. Now there was only Yzak left. He may as well even take himself out of the equation.

In contrast, the Archangel was made up of scraps of soldiers. That they knew for sure, because the main crew had been caught in the explosion they'd set up. They'd passed the bodies themselves, in the shaft. They hadn't the time to develop bonds like that. It wasn't mourning for someone close. It was something else.

But when the girl was suddenly on top of him and he was pushed into the mattress by the sudden force, he wondered if that was really the case. If he'd put his foot in his mouth and earned a punch from Yzak – or, of late, Athrun, though if memory served him right it was Yzak who'd taken the hit.

Well, he was paying for it now, with scratches and bumps that felt more like an annoyance by themselves, but would no doubt accumulate later on. Like a tough sparring match. Except he couldn't do anything because his hands were tied behind his back and she was crying and seething and hissing – what sounded like "You… How dare you?" but he wouldn't bet any money on that assumption.

'Hey,' he tried, awkwardly, and mostly for his own self-preservation – though he had to admit, she was unnerving him. Badly. Even if he could hit her back, he wouldn't be able to feel good about it because of that damn _crying_. ' _Did_ your boyfriend die? It's hardly my fault, you know. This is – '

He'd meant to say "this is war", but he'd drawn back when he'd noticed her arms creeping out, searching for something. Hitting him bodily wasn't enough. She was panting. Her eyes were wild and her hair was getting there. Her fingers closed around a scalpel and she gripped it tightly – in one hand, and then in both, raising it over her head to stab down.

He stiffened. Fell silent, because everything he'd said so far had just made things worse.

And then the door opened.

**.**

The infirmary was totally the wrong place for her, but that was the only place they'd claimed they needed an extra hand. Really, it was just to keep her out of the way, she supposed. She didn't have an important job at all. Not like the rest of the ship.

She opened the door, and took in the scene with an odd feeling of detachment. Miriallia she'd never seen look so uncontrolled – and yet it did her justice, seeing the Coordinator cowering behind him. He shouldn't even be there, being treated like a person.

_Especially if he'd killed Kira…_

Sai pushed past her. Grabbed Miriallia as she stabbed, missed, and tried to stab again. Held her tight as she shrieked insensibly – shrieked words the Coordinator seemed trying to understand.

_As if he's human. As if he's got a heart._

Her heart burned. Her fingers itched. She wanted that scalpel. She wanted a weapon.

_I wonder how a gun would look in my hand…_ That thought from not long before – it was back, and with another little fact. There was a gun in the infirmary. She knew where it was. She found it easily, feelings its cold, hard metal. Cold and hard like the Strike. Not soft and warm like Kira.

_Kira…_ Some sort of emptiness spread in her chest. Some detachment. She'd been killing for a long time, through Kira. This wouldn't be any different. Just another enemy that needed to be cut down.

She aimed, and pulled the trigger. The bullet missed, lodged itself into the ceiling instead. Someone had knocked her off her feet, messed with her aim.

She stared at Miriallia, shaking on her chest.


	7. Sea Glass

The orphanage was only quiet when someone was sick or there was a war above, and it had been quiet for almost a week. The debris had mostly been swept away by the waves, and the ash had mostly been buried. The trees were still broken. A few bits of metal still remained, and the beach was still a darker shade than it had been before. But those things would fix themselves given time. It wasn't that that kept the blanket of silence over them.

It was their two guests: Athrun and Kira.

Of the two, Athrun had definitely been doing better. He'd been walking and talking while Kira had been unconscious all the while. Physically speaking anyhow. Other things spoke for themselves. The ache of loss, of confusion, of war. Kira, sleeping deeply, showed none of that. Athrun, awake and aware, did. When he was awake and aware, because he needed sleep as well, wounded in both body and soul.

And there was nothing to force him to get up and move on. So he slept most of the days and nights away, until something changed.

Reverend Malchio had told no-one of his two guests. He was yet to know their full circumstances, and until he did he would be doing nothing save nursing them back to earth. The boat came with its usual supplies and he sent for a trusted doctor as well. He put Athrun's broken arm into a cast and managed to get Kira's fever nicely down. It had climbed up one night and they'd struggled with it after.

He'd barely twitched through all of that, but now he was starting to come out of that almost comatose sleep. Small twitches: his finger shifting a little as though trying to grab something, His lips twitching as though trying to utter some sound.

And then one day, without warning, his eyes were suddenly open and staring about in a panic. Reverend Malchio felt that sporadic gaze. Perhaps before the child accompanying him tugged on his sleeve and whispered how big those eyes looked, framed by the bandages that wrapped the burns on his face. They'd gone down, fading already. Coordinators had extraordinary healing abilities, and helped with technology the possibilities seemed even more amazing. A hospital wouldn't be able to do much more than a single doctor with the right machines. Rapidly, it was becoming a place for convenience and not for complications – those things that individual doctors could not deal with.

That boy – Kira, as Athrun had called him – was definitely a Coordinator.

To be able to regraft burnt skin in a backroom of an island orphanage was a marker of how separated the fragments of the world had become. That was why his job was what it was – to provide a connection, one of many between two segregated and warring nations. To provide a place where it didn't matter which of them they were – where everyone could be safe.

For now, that place was just his little orphanage in the Marshall Islands…but that was okay. He had children there: Coordinators, and Naturals, and all of them happy. All of them content.

And now he had two more, almost men. Coordinators. Soldiers – or, at least, one of them was definitely a soldier. It wouldn't last forever – but wounded, a human was a human. Whether their genes had been altered or not determined the mode and ease of treatment but nothing else.

And awake and looking around without recognition, a lost child was a lost child, despite their circumstances.

'This is my orphanage in the Marshall Islands,' Reverend Malchio explained. 'I am Reverend Malchio.'

Eyes focused on him. Stared at him, increasingly hazily. He hadn't been awake for too long. 'Mar…shall?' he asked, voice dry and cracked and fluttery.

'Yes.' The reverend nodded. 'The Marshall Islands are part of the Orb republic, though we are quite some distance from the capital in Onogoro.'

'Orb.' The eyes slipped a little closed.

**.**

_Marshall Islands. Orb. Onogoro._ The words floated around in Kira's mind, searching for connection. He watched them, watched as they were joined by another word. _Heliopolis._

And then more words. _Space. Earth. Heliopolis…space. Onogoro…earth._ Slowly gaining more tangibility. More sense. Though there was still a large fog in his mind, refusing to let go.

'Earth?' he tried.

'That's right.' The voice was unfamiliar, and yet soothing and calm. Reminiscent of his mother when he'd hurt himself doing something and was resting. 'We're on earth.'

But he'd been on Heliopolis. At university. In space. 'How..?'

'I was hoping you would be able to tell me,' the man replied. He'd introduced himself, hadn't he? Reverend Malchio?

How he'd gotten to earth from space? He hadn't a clue. And when he closed his eyes and tried to puzzle it out, the words grew too many and too complex and dizzying and dragged him back into the black.

**.**

'So he's woken up,' Athrun said. He still didn't know where he sat, with Kira's survival. It would have been far easier if he'd died.

And yet…he'd felt relieved. Relieved that he hadn't killed Kira. Relieved that the boy who'd once been his best friend was still alive.

But Kira had done too much damage to be saved by this point. If it wasn't him, it would be someone else. Yzak maybe.

But it was cowardly to want someone else to clean up after his mess. Because it was his mess. His failure. He'd tried so hard and yet he'd still failed. Failed and been a little bit _happy_ – a disgrace to all those people he'd let down by failing that task he'd set himself.

It wasn't like Kira would have been the first.

_But it's Kira…_

Commander Le Cruset was right. Knowing one's enemy just made it harder.

_'And can you look such a friend in the face as you shoot them?'_

No. It turned out in the end he couldn't. He'd fled, his back turned, instead. Fled and allowed the other to, somehow, escape.

_'Allow such a friend to kill comrades? Other friends?'_

Rusty. Miguel. Commander Waltfeld. Commander Morrassim. Nicol. All those other soldiers from ZAFT who had lost their lives at the Strike's blade.

But he couldn't summon that rage: the rage he'd gone into the battlefield with, that he'd tried to strike Kira down with. Even that hadn't been enough. He'd failed. Kira was alive. A hallway away from him.

His feet were suddenly carrying him there.

_A near-corpse. Something too pitying to kill, to hate._ That would explain where his hatred, his anger had gotten to. When this soft feeling he'd thought Nicol's death had driven out had come back.

Except the Kira wrapped in bandages looked just like he'd gotten into a schoolyard with someone and was sleeping.

That wouldn't have been the first time, if that was really what had happened. Kira would often get into fights, not because he went out of his way to seek them, but because he couldn't turn away from someone in trouble. He was just soft-hearted that way. Or had been. That Kira wouldn't have it in him to kill so many good men. He wouldn't have it in him to defend a stupid ship that should have gone down long ago.

_'…people I feel obligated to protect…'_

He'd turned around and called them his friends later, but obligations weren't friends. They were liars. Tricksters. If only he could have taken Kira away then – but he'd already killed Miguel by that point.

_Not Nicol though._

Could he have forgiven Miguel? It was a difficult question, now that the answer didn't matter anymore. Could he forgive this?

His gun felt heavier than ever by his uninjured side. Why was it even there? Hadn't anyone thought to take it from him? In an orphanage full of kids? Were they just that trusting…or that foolish? They obviously didn't trust ZAFT, if that kid who glared daggers at him every time he came was anything to go by.

But the gun was there. Weighing.

Kira opened his eyes. 'Athrun?' he asked, voice still hoarse from disuse…and with a heavy tinge of sleepiness in it. 'You made it to Orb after all…' He closed his eyes again.

Athrun found himself staring blankly. "Made it to Orb?" What sort of comment was that? If they were still young, before the university of Heliopolis and the training academy of the ZAFT military, when they'd promised to go to the land of freedom and neutrality together…

_But Orb was where those mobile suits and the Archangel had been built_ , Athrun reminded himself. _And they hid the Archangel. They're hardly neutral._

But they'd been ignorant back then. Ignorant and dreamers, longing for a world of peace. Away from war.

He felt sad all of a sudden, and he backed away from the bed, until he was in the hallway and the angle had cut Kira of. It was a terribly sad thought, thinking about what they had come to, from that day they'd made that innocent promise they'd truly believed they would be able to follow through on.

_Meet in Orb. Live in peace together. Never go near war._

They'd only managed one of the three. And it was because of war they'd managed that one.

Kira…was he delusional? Thinking about the past? About those same times?

Well…the both of them had plenty of time for such reflections.


	8. Between Waves

It was a puzzle that didn't take too long in figuring out. The next time Kira woke, he was confused and excited and asking a whole heap of questions that really would have been more appropriate if Bloody Valentine had never happened. "What took you so long?" "Where are you staying?" "How long?" "Have you met everyone yet?" "Are you attending the university too?" "What course?" "Hey, what are you doing hiding over there?"

Athrun didn't even know how Kira had known he was there. He was out of sight, he'd thought. Behind the door, where he could argue with himself that he wasn't looking in on an old friend.

Were they even friends now? Kira was making the question even harder, like he was. Had he driven the memories of the war out of his mind? Would it come back as he stayed awake for longer, healed some more?

And why could Kira forget, when Athrun was stuck with those memories burnt in to his mind.

He left back to the room given to him, not answering a single one of Kira's questions with Reverend Malchio's sightless eyes burning into his back alongside Kira's own.

**.**

He was dreaming. He was sure he was because he was back at the Lunar prep school, before Bloody Valentine. Where he and Kira had grown up, and befriended each other. Where they'd said goodbye to each other, planning to meet up again, when the world was calm.

But that was a foolish idea. The world was never calm. And the problems between the Coordinators and Naturals escalated to unfathomable heights. The Earth was sure they'd win. They'd driven the Coordinators into space. They'd destroyed an agricultural state and wiped out hundreds of innocent lives. The massacre was entirely on their side –

But Coordinators were human too. Prodded enough, they would fight back. The grief and anger of those who had lost loved ones would not be easily abated. The calmer amongst them dropped the N-Jammers to stop such a brutal and tragic strike from happening again – but that didn't soothe the ones who hungered for blood. Most obeyed the state, as grudgedly as they may have, but a few rebelled. That sparked the fire that was a new wave of attacks from the Naturals – and, this time, they could not be ignored.

Both fractions were swept in to war, despite how they'd at the PLANTs had tried to resist the flow. Athrun, who'd lost his mother at Junius Seven, had no choice but to be swept into the military, into the war. Kira, with no such ties and travelling to Orb, should have been far away from that.

And if Orb was what they had promised, that would have been what happened.

That was what the two boys, standing under a sweeping trees, believed.

'You'll come soon, right?' Kira asked – a younger Kira, just as Athrun remembered him. In truth, his features hadn't really changed much at all. A young Kira who had no reason to believe that their reunion wouldn't happen – just like a young Athrun had no reason to believe it.

But now, in the dark future that had unfolded, he did know. And that promise seemed not hopeful and light and innocent but cruel.

And there was no way to convey that to his old self. The lips were moving. The words were coming out: that promise he'd never be able to keep. A little smile, deceptively concealing all that would happen afterwards…

A childish thought snuck in to his mind. If he could grab Kira right then, go with him or take him away to ZAFT as well, they wouldn't have to meet on the battlefront. They wouldn't have to be separated. They could be together.

But he couldn't go with Kira. He had to go to his father. But Kira could come with him. Kira who could be made to understand the loss the Coordinators felt. Even if his parents were Naturals, and in Orb, he could be made to understand –

Athrun found himself crying. He hadn't cried since he'd heard about his mother's death, some weeks before that fateful farewell. By that point he'd gotten used to the mask, smiling, promising – maybe he had known he wouldn't ever go to Orb. Even the seeds of anger were brewing, as grief settled down. But maybe he could have, if he hadn't met so many people filled with anger and hatred and even worse grief. Maybe he could have, if his father hadn't been so determined to see justice done. Those sights made Athrun feel guilty, like he should hate the Naturals more than he did. And that fed that hatred, that mask of war.

Now he was that person looking back on the time before it had all occurred. And though he couldn't understand why, he was crying at the sight of it.

**.**

'Dreams are quite clever things,' Reverend Malchio remarked, as Athrun opened his eyes. 'They can tell us things we can't quite work out or face without their help.'

The Reverend did have an uncanny ability to see things others did not. Athrun actually found it quite hard to believe he _was_ blind, but the way he always felt for material things was quite good proof. It only seemed that, with people, he could see: see things that perhaps the ability of visual sight made blind for other people.

And he saw Athrun's dream – in the sense at least that the dream took him back to a pivotal time, where things could have still gone right, if given a second chance.

Maybe it had been telling him that he had that second chance. Without Kira's memories of the destruction of Heliopolis and the battles that followed after, he was no different to the boy Athrun had said farewell to at Lunar Prep. They could go back together, start over.

Or they could have, if the rest of the world didn't remember. If _Athrun_ didn't remember.

Maybe that was why he'd been crying. It was impossible even with that little window of opportunity that had opened up.

'I am not part of ZAFT,' the Reverend said suddenly. 'Nor am I part of the Earth Alliance, or of Orb, really. Maybe there is a fourth fraction that tries to reconcile between the Earth and Space without being attached to a military.'

Maybe that was Orb's one failing – their military. It made them a target of other militia. It made them greedy for the power of those militia. ZAFT, the Earth Alliance – they weren't much different. ZAFT had gone to Heliopolis to steal the Earth Forces' new prototype mobile suits after all. The fact that Heliopolis had been helping them wasn't even a concern to some. That it was destroyed – it was only collateral damage.

But there were a few like him who were hurt at the sense of betrayal. Who'd believed Orb was a place they could go and live happily, if the war ended and the could get out of the military. Once everything had been settled: their revenge, their duties – they could have found a corner of peace in the world.

But that had just been soft thinking. Impossible.

'If you say things are impossible,' the Reverend said, suddenly. 'They will always be impossible.'

He offered a cup of tea. Athrun took it carefully, watching the white porcelain wobble on a painted saucer. 'The children have fun decorating them,' the Reverend explained.

Athrun wondered if the Reverend's choice of green birds had been on purpose or just a coincidence.

Where was Torii anyway? Lacus had said Kira still had it, and he'd seen it for himself in Orb, but he'd heard nothing about the little mechanical bird.

He stared at the birds. They were childish: with two triangles that couldn't be anything but wings, an oval for a body and a small circle for a head with a yellow arrow like thing which was the beak. Simple, and distinct. But still it seemed to represent Torii perfectly.

Maybe it was because he'd made Torii green and yellow. If the little painted birds were any other colour, he doubted the connection would have been so prominent. Or so meaningful.

'ZAFT won't accept him,' Athrun said. 'Not after what he's done.'

The Reverend turned sightless eyes to him. 'Will you?'

And that was the real question. If Athrun could accept Kira, something could come from that. If he couldn't, if Kira was just the enemy he'd tried so hard to destroy…

_Did I hold back?_

For the first time, doubt flickered in to his mind.

_Did I fail because I didn't want to kill him?_

Maybe Kira was still alive because he'd given him a way out. That was another puzzle he hadn't quite managed to solve. Because the Aegis should have sealed the exit hatch and the emergency one as well. There should have been no way Kira could be thrown like that –

Unless he hadn't managed to close the emergency hatch after all.

_Was I showing mercy to an enemy?_

Or was it that he still couldn't bring himself to think of Kira as an enemy, even dripping in anger and the adrenaline of war as he'd been.

And now, when it had all dripped out, he was in an even worse state than before. He couldn't kill Kira now. Not hanging on to the past like he was.

But could he start over? Could they?


	9. Finding the Shoreline

That was the question that would determine his path from there. Whether he could put the past behind them both and go towards what they could have gone towards. What they can still gone towards.

In the end, it seemed to come down to something very simple. He didn't want to lose Kira. And he couldn't deny that. His killing hand couldn't deny that – how many times had he pulled back and let it cost them? How many times had he failed? It was impossible. Impossible to want to kill Kira with all his heart. Even that rage, even Nicol who'd become almost like Kira to him, hadn't been enough.

He let himself cry one night, once his burns had healed and his hip was getting there so he could walk with just a slight limp and it was only the broken arm that still lay, unusable, within its cast. He let himself cry because he knew he had to leave the island soon: go back to ZAFT, or run away. But he didn't want to run away. ZAFT wasn't wrong. He hadn't learnt that yet. He'd just learnt that he didn't want to fight his best friend, even on such a blood-covered battlefield.

Commander Le Cruset had been right. He couldn't point a gun at such a friend. Or…he could, but couldn't pull the trigger at point blank range.

No, that wasn't right. He'd done that, hadn't he? Pulled the trigger. Destroyed both of their Gundams. What he hadn't been able to do was kill him. And the Commander had known that all along.

Athrun found himself wondering if the Commander would be so sympathetic now as well. Hadn't he said once how sad it was that someone with as much potential as Kira had been ensnared by the Earth Forces? How someone like him had rotted away in Orb while a fight bloomed between their people and the earth who screamed for their execution? Hadn't Kira been smothering in the high tech and deceptively peaceful façade when the horror of Junius Seven spread across the world – because they'd left the Lunar Prep school quietly. They'd been asked to make their choice and that was it.

But the Kira now only remembered up to that point. To his knowledge, he hadn't been in Orb long. Athrun could save him. Maybe that was the whole reason they'd both survived. He could put this right.

But it wasn't truly going back in time. He couldn't kid himself into thinking that everyone wouldn't still be dead: everyone killed by Kira's hands.

_Kira…how could a cry-baby like you become a murderer?_

But the same question could be returned to him. How had he become a murderer? He'd just wanted to build things as a child. Like Haro. Like Torii. And yet he'd cut down so many on the battlefield. Even ones he'd tried to spare had been caught by other fires. And he remembered throwing one of those detachable weapons, watching it strike a fighter plane and hearing Kira's scream –

The same sort of scream Athrun had let loose when Kira's sword had cut clean through Nicol's Gundam.

He cried for all those people who had been lost that night as well.

**.**

'How is Kira?' he asked the Reverend as the man came in to the room.

Reverend Malchio smiled. 'This is the first time you've asked,' he commented. 'I see you've made your decision then.'

'Uhh…' He looked at his blankets. He may have, but uncertainty still clung to his heart.

'I'm sure.' The Reverend closed his unseeing eyes. 'You've heard the words of Lacus Clyne in a situation like this.'

Athrun had known he was a friend of Lacus. He'd seen the man through the video-com from the Clyne's home on several occasions. And that was why he hadn't contacted ZAFT: had let the both of them rest in peace. Lacus wouldn't have contacted them either. Lacus would have wanted the declaration to return to come from his own mouth.

'"First decide," he quoted, '"and then just do it."'

The Reverend smiled. 'Nothing is to be gained from indecision,' he agreed. 'Maybe you will pick the wrong path, but you will come to know of that eventually. Staring at all the doors won't tell you that; it's not until you start walking that you can say which one is better or worse.'

Athrun closed his eyes. He knew all that, but words were not the same as true acceptance. But all he could do was move forward – move forward and hope he was making the right choice.

He wondered what would have happened if he'd just snatched Kira away back at Heliopolis. Before the lady from the Earth Forces, who'd killed Rusty, had grabbed him and tossed him into the Gundam that remained. They could have avoided all of this. The Archangel would have been downed at Heliopolis, without the Strike defending it. It may have never even taken off. They could have dealt with the other problems with the Earth Forces. Artemis. Panama. Alaska. The Lunar Headquarters.

The war might even have come to an end by now. Because he was sure the Archangel wouldn't get far without the Strike. It may have even sunk, in the week or so they'd been at the Marshall Islands, recovering.

And just like a full circle, he'd come back to his original question. 'How is Kira?'

'Kira is recovering well,' Reverend Malchio replied. 'He was closer to the explosion, but he took less damage from the fall. The trees caught him and slowed him down.'

While Athrun had tried for the other direction, for the sea. He shook his head; that was pretty lucky of Kira, because he doubted the other had had time beyond searching for an escape.

It wouldn't have been easy to see the tiny gap the Aegis had unintentionally left behind.

His fists caught the covers. Still, he thought of that as a failure. He needed to stop. If they were going to start over, he needed to forget about all of that.

The Reverend offered him a cup of tea. Athrun let go of the covers and accepted it with a word of thanks.

'His memory doesn't seem to have changed either,' the Reverend continued.

'That's good,' Athrun said, with some relief. To have Kira remember everything would open a whole other can of worms. And now that there was a sparkle of hope, he didn't want it to vanish. 'I can save him then.'

Maybe the Reverend wondered what Kira would need saving from, but it wasn't his question to ask and so he did not. 'I can contact ZAFT today, if you like.'

Athrun considered. 'Tomorrow please,' he said. 'Tomorrow. Today, I just want to relax.'

And maybe he would cave in to that tiny but shrill voice in his head saying the whole idea of taking Kira back to ZAFT was completely crazy. But then again, only Commander Le Cruset and Lacus knew the name of the Strike's Pilot. He doubted either one of them would sell him out. All they had to do was write him up as an orphan and put him into the military academy. Athrun had no doubt he'd graduate in no time with a red coat.

And then Kira would be where he should have been when the war began. Not at Orb: Orb wasn't a place for Coordinators…especially not ones like Kira destined to wind up in a Gundam.

**.**

'Athrun!'

Kira sounded just like a little kid when Athrun came into the room given to him.

'You haven't visited in a _ges_.'

And he wore a pout just like a kid as well. Athrun let a small smile slide on to his face. That expression made things easier. 'I'm hurt too,' he said, showing his slinged arm.

Kira stared at it. 'Ouch,' he winced. 'Did you climb a rocket launch again?'

He really did remember nothing. The question was an innocent, almost teasing, one, referring to that time from long ago when they were both kids and mischievous. Someone had dared the children to climb the launch. The one who got the highest got…Athrun couldn't remember what it was, but everyone wanted to get there. Until Athrun went, his hands still oily from the gear he'd been fiddling around with earlier. And he'd slipped.

So they'd called off the dare and Athrun had to spend a week in a cast much like the one he wore now.

Athrun blinked the old memories away. Kira's expression had now turned in to something sad. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'You look like…that time…'

This time, Athrun didn't know what Kira meant. 'What time?' he asked, confused and trying not to snap. He knew Kira didn't know, didn't remember. And he wasn't going to tell him the truth. Not if he wanted to accomplish what he did.

'Junius Seven.' Kira mumbled it, but it was clear enough. 'I…heard about it after I got to Orb.'

Athrun felt his own expression change. Junius Seven was a hurt he would never be able to heal from. He didn't think any Coordinator could heal from it. Everyone had lost so much…

And the war was the same, wasn't it? Everybody losing so many things… No wonder he wore the same expression on his face.

'My mother died on Junius Seven,' Athrun said. 'And now there's a war and I've lost many friends in it. And I'm fighting in it because I don't want to lose everything else. That's how I got this.'

He gestured to his slinged arm, and Kira's eyes, purple and dull but clear, stared at the cast.


	10. Reflections in Puddles

Kira stared at Athrun's casted arm. It had looked so innocent originally – but the hints that it wasn't, that none of this was, had been dropped since long before. The whispering children that seemed to didn't want to come in to his room – and when they did, it was quietly and quickly and they'd be gone before he could hold a conversation with them. And then there were all the snippets of news reports he could hear – that sounded like fighting: gunfire and explosives and over them a monotone explaining something he couldn't quite hear.

He'd asked Reverend Malchio about the war. The man hadn't said much: just a general overview. Junius Seven he remembered hearing about. What it had propelled though he hadn't known. The N-jammers dropped on to the earth, creating problems with power but making it impossible to launch another nuclear attack.

And that just made the fighting that followed all the more bloody. Unable to simply blow the enemy up, everyone fought with what they could. Fists, machines, guns and swords. Anything they could get their hands on. And too many people had been swept up in to it. Too many places. Even little corners, like this island seemed to be, of the world.

Even Orb, who was supposed to be eternally independent and away from war. Reverend Malchio hadn't said so himself, but other children had whispered about the Orb carrier that had gone around the islands.

He'd been on the main island of Orb last he remembered. With his parents. He hadn't a clue how he'd wound up here, and Reverend Malchio hadn't been able to tell him.

'Your friend Athrun found you,' was all he said, and perhaps all he knew. But he'd only seen Athrun when he'd woken up once, and Athrun had vanished so fast…

Or maybe he'd fallen asleep. The first few days since he woke up on the island, he'd slept quite a bit. He'd had a fever, according to Reverend Malchio. A fever, but not an infection. A Coordinator's immune system was like that: strong to counter much of the infections of earth. But Reverend Malchio wouldn't have known that unless Athrun had told him.

'And how is Athrun here?' Kira had asked.

The Reverend had simply said it was Athrun's story to tell.

And now he was telling it. Showing a cast in the shadow of a war.

'You've been fighting in the war?' he asked. But it wasn't really a question, he supposed. It was more that he was asking for a confirmation.

'I have things I need to protect,' Athrun repeated. 'My home: the Plants. We've already lost Junius Seven and all those innocent people. The Naturals will aim for Aprilius as soon as they can. They may have been aiming there originally. I don't know. And my father is there. Lacus is there. My home is there. I can't just sit idly and wait for my home to be destroyed.'

'Lacus?' Kira wondered. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he didn't question it. 'But why are the Naturals –'

'Hell if I know!' Athrun almost shouted that, before coughing and sitting down in a visible effort to control himself. 'They destroyed Junius Seven. All those innocent people. My mother. And the Plants had did nothing but try and negotiate with the Earth Forces. They'd done nothing that warranted retaliation. The Earth had struck first. And still the Plants tried to avoid war. They planted the N-jammers into the earth, hoping that by taking out their fangs, the Earth Forces would quiet down. Instead, they attacked the Coordinators on earth – and the Plants couldn't just abandon them.'

Kira sat quietly through that. Athrun was still shaking. Looking near tears – except his eyes were dry. It seemed all he'd gone through since they'd parted had hardened his heart to such things. The old Athrun he was sure would have cried. Even though he'd often called Kira the crybaby. If Kira was Athrun right then, he was sure he would be crying too.

'What are you crying for?' Athrun sounded surprised. Just plain, open, surprise.

Kira lifted a hand with a small wince. Most of the bandages he'd been wrapped in ideally had been taken off, leaving the healing wounds raw. One of those pink patches was his wrist, protesting every time he moved his hand. The bandages left were wrapped around his chest, binding his ribs. They should be able to come off soon too. They still hurt when he moved too much, though he hadn't tried walking yet.

But he wasn't crying from pain or anything like that. Just listening to Athrun's words. Looking at his face and broken arm. And to think when they'd been young and there'd been no war, they'd laughed afterwards about how silly they'd all been – and Athrun especially, climbing something slippery with oil on his hands.

'Crybaby,' Athrun sighed, but for some reason he was smiling. Kira wasn't too sure why he was smiling. Maybe they just hadn't seen each other for a while and he was just happy? Since there didn't seem to be much else to be happy about from that story of his.

**.**

Athrun, for his part, was smiling because Kira was just like the old Kira. Before they'd met at Heliopolis. Before they'd met on the battlefield. Before they'd fought, each time more fiercely than the last. It was easier to forget that Kira had been out on the battlefield as well. That same battlefield, but on the other side.

It was easier to pretend they were too different Kira's. Maybe he would do that from now on. The Kira before him now was a totally different person – no, this was the Kira from his past, the friend from childhood he'd left that day at the Lunar Prep school thinking they'd both meet up at the Plants later – or at Orb.

There would be no Orb now. But they'd go back to the Plants together. The pilot of the Strike was the other person, the stranger he had killed – succeeding in killing.

He offered Kira a tissue. Kira took it and rubbed at his eyes. 'Maybe that's what happened with you,' he said. Though it was a lie. Sort of a lie, though not entirely. The Earth Forces had tricked and used him instead, because they'd needed someone who could fly the Strike against four equally powerful machines manned by Coordinators. But this was the simpler suggestion: the one that took all the time the other Kira had been there out of the equation. It was perfect, for this Kira who didn't remember beyond Orb. Who didn't remember Heliopolis or the start of his involvement in the war.

It was naïve and foolish, he knew. But it was possible, and seeing Kira just like the old Kira was lulling him in. All that agonising this last week and more, and the crying last night…all of that was helping him set the rest into the back of his mind.

It had been a brief holiday from the war that was finally settling him, perhaps. And that would no doubt change once he returned. Once _they_ returned.

But there was a chance in his hands he could no longer think of letting go.

'Hey, Kira,' he said. 'Come back with me. Orb is a part of the Earth Forces and you can't go back there. And you shouldn't want to go back there either.'

'They betrayed…the Coordinators?' Kira sounded mystified – dizzy with shock and disbelief. 'But it's _Orb_.'

'Orb is led by cowards,' said Athrun. 'Cowards who signed up to help the Earth Forces so they could gain more power. They don't have nearly as many Coordinators as they do Naturals. Naturally, they wouldn't care much for the minority.'

He looked at Kira. He was sitting up now alright now. His skin was covered in patches of pink where the burns were almost healed. Kira followed the gaze and looked at himself as well. 'Orb…did this?'

'Yes.' Another partial lie. Because it was Kira being at Orb, at Heliopolis, that had put him in the seat of a Gundam and in to the war. It was that which had put him into the hands of the Earth Forces. Against fellow Coordinators.

Kira might have found it harder to accept if he'd remembered his time there. But he only remembered weeks. Reverend Malchio had checked on that and Athrun confirm the day they'd separated: him for the Plants, Kira for Orb. The day Junius Seven was gone, when they'd gotten enough confirmation for parents to start pulling their kids away immediately, for those old enough to hastily make a decision without necessarily knowing why they were being so rushed. Kira hadn't. He hadn't. He hadn't had anyone at the Plants.

'The Plants will give you sanctuary.' Athrun said. _Maybe_. And when this war is over, we can hang out together like we used to. But don't go back to Orb. Please. They'll kill you for setting foot on the main island.'

They probably wouldn't, considering they'd let him in to the inner compounds of Morgenrate and all. But Kira had to come to the Plants. It was the only way to keep him out of the Earth Forces' grip.

Kira was silent a moment. 'What is this war?' he asked finally. 'Attacking because we're different? I'd hoped at least Orb would be free from that.'

'It's not.' And that was something he could say with all honesty. Otherwise Orb would never have teamed up with the Earth Forces. Orb whose principles spoke against taking sides in such conflicts – and yet it was them taking sides that was seeing to the prolongation of this war.

'I don't remember any of it.' Kira looked at his hands, at his reddened palms. 'Orb is still a paradise in my mind except for all you've said.'

It wasn't that Kira didn't believe him, Athrun knew, and he was relieved. Because if he didn't then they would inevitably fight again – but fighting him now would be like fighting him when they'd crossed paths at Heliopolis, when he'd just been an innocent and clueless bystander in a bad place. It might be an easy one, but it would have been a haunting one. Worse than watching a sword slice through Nicol in a split second. Worse than watching Rusty running one moment, falling the next and being left behind to grow cold in the debris because the rest of them had to keep on running.

Athrun suddenly wondered how Kira's expression would be, how he'd react, when told of all the blood clinging to his hands.

Kira was staring at him now. 'Are you going to fight again? Go back to the war?'

'There's no escape from the war, but yes. I'll go back until the Plants and all the people I love are safe.' He looked at Kira: green eyes imploring purple ones. 'Come back to the Plants, Kira. I can't lose you again.'

After all, he'd already killed him once. Or the imposter Kira who'd become the Earth Forces' puppet. He wasn't going to let his Kira go to become a puppet all over again. He'd decided that.

Kira's shoulders seemed to slump a little. Athrun wasn't too sure. But his ears weren't so deceived. They heard the answer loud and clear. 'Okay.'


	11. Watching the Water

Once the decision was made, things seemed to accelerate. Athrun left Kira to rest some more and wandered around the island. That would invite more questions, perhaps, if Kira made it out of bed before they left. The Gundams that had, surprisingly quickly considering their history, become a plaything for the children.

It was both endearing and sad, watching them crawl all over the bits of the Aegis – and where was the Strike? He'd seen it and it should, aside from the cockpit at least, have been whole and in far better condition than the Aegis.

Perhaps that was why. Orb might have come searching. Certainly, they knew about the orphanage in the area and it was possible either the Archangel or Commander Le Creuset had called to their softer spot. They sprouted those sentiments, anyway. That they wouldn't take any side in the war, would accept Natural and Coordinator alike – but then they went and built the Gundams in Heliopolis and started the recent chain of events. He couldn't trust them anymore. Before though, he'd entertained the notion. Before Junius Seven fell and it became an impossibility. Back when they'd just separated from each other. Back when they'd thought the dissent in the Plants would fade and Kira and his parents would move back…

But for a first generation Coordinator with Natural parents, perhaps Orb was the better choice at the time. For its ideals, anyway. If they hadn't so blatantly betrayed them… But it was a place he could never have gone, with the way the Plants were at the time and it had only gotten worse since. If Kira's parents hadn't been Naturals, or if his father didn't run the defence committee and wasn't a part of the Plant Supreme Council… But they were all what ifs that nothing could be done about now. Just like his mother being on Junius Seven at the time of the nuclear attack, or Kira being in Heliopolis during the ZAFT invasion…

The last one was the one he _was_ doing something about. If it was at all feasible. Or possible. Commander Le Creuset knew Kira's name because Athrun had told him himself, but who else knew? Nicol probably did, with Athrun's habit of saying his friend's name aloud when he thought he was alone and Nicol's radar for finding him when he was alone…

_Nicol…_

He banished that thought from his head. He avenged Nicol. He destroyed the Strike and Kira wouldn't be piloting a mobile suit again. In fact, for all intents and purposes, the Kira that had allied himself with the Earth Alliance was dead. This was the Kira he'd said goodbye to when they were thirteen, when they'd both thought they'd meet up again but until now they never did.

Would this really work? It was easy to say so now, in this sequestered orphanage where children could quickly forget a killing machine when it turned into a playground filled with toys for them. They climbed on the bits of the Aegis as though it hadn't killed and tried to kill and eventually self-destructed in a simultaneous suicide-kill attempt.

Which reminded him: how the _hell_ did Kira survive that? Self-destruction would only injure someone else by proxy but he'd loaded the dice in his favour. Made damn sure because he'd been almost out of power and there'd been no other way… And evidentially, it wasn't a power issue. The Aegis had been blown to bits and thrown him to the shore. It had that much in it. And he'd torn the cockpit open to make sure it was Kira and not just his machine that took the blast. _His_ machine still had enough power for phase shift armour, after all. So how the hell…

But there was nothing to tell him now. The Strike was gone, and so was Kira's memories. And wasn't that a good thing? Didn't it give them both a second chance…

But that wasn't true either. It got Kira a second chance, yes, assuming ZAFT didn't realise who he was and blow him to bits. But the only thing it did for him was wash away the stain of having killed his best friend in what was essentially cold blood.

He shook his head. The seagulls squawked over the sea, as though there hadn't been a battle in their territory just a few days before. He'd chosen to forgive this Kira, the Kira without his memories and hoping Athrun would one day come to Orb and they'd be friends again. He'd chosen to forgive him and try again… but what was the chances of it working out like that?

.

Kira slept some more, and the next time he woke up, he was alone. And he was relieved to be alone. Not that he minded those kids coming to peak at him – and even play with him a bit but he was too tired still. Why was he so tired?

But that wasn't what was bothering him. It was Athrun. And Orb. And Junius Seven. And the war. The war had been creeping closer to Heliopolis. He knew that. He remembered that. But how he'd suddenly wound up on the Marshall Islands in Orb – and in an Orb who was siding with the Earth Alliance in this war and condemning all the Coordinators who'd trickled over there to avoid the divide?

 _Mum… Dad…_ But in a world that was split into two fractions, first generation Coordinators would eventually wind up split from their parents, wouldn't they? Could he talk to them? Perhaps the Reverend had a phone.

And, suddenly, he ached to hear his parents' voices.

.

The Reverend did have a phone, and he was happy to offer it as well. But the children turned out to be curious about his parents and crowded into his bed and so the call wasn't as personal as he'd originally expected to be.

That was okay. He had nothing to hide. Except the fact that he wasn't a hundred percent. They'd be worried if they knew that.

The phone rang. And rang. A new fear seized him. Had something happened to them?

Then the tone was replaced by his mother's voice. 'Yamato residence, Caridad speaking.'

Warmth rushed through him. 'Mum?'

There was a pause. A heartbeat. 'Kira!' She babbled his name over and over and he heard his father's voice in the background as well, repeating his name as well.

Had they feared he'd been lost in Heliopolis?

'I'm okay,' he assured. A white lie, but he would be.

'You're…' His mother was crying, he realised. She was crying. He hoped it was out of relief… Even if he didn't want to have worried her in the first place.

'I'm okay,' he repeated.

'He said you were… _dead_.' She whispered the last word, as though it was a taboo.

'I'm fine,' he said again. 'I wasn't in Heliopolis when it went down. Or I was evacuated. I'm not really sure,' he admitted. 'Are you and Dad okay?'

'Of course we are,' she said. 'Things are pretty quiet here… except, well, the Archangel.'

'Archangel?' Kira repeated, before deciding he didn't really care. 'Do you know what happened to my friends? Tolle and Miri and…'

'They're fine,' she said. 'I saw them and their parents a few days ago. But Kira, shouldn't you –'

He cut her off. Relief flooded him and that was all he needed to hear. 'Mum,' he said. 'I met Athrun again. You remember him?'

'Of course I do.' He could hear the smile in her voice now. She'd been very close to Athrun's mother, just as he'd been very close to Athrun. And a soft smile spread over his own lips – before the next thought stripped it away.

'In Junius Seven… Athrun's mother died.'

'Lenore…' She stifled another sob. 'And I didn't even know.'

'Athrun's here right now,' Kira explained, 'but he's going back to the Plants soon. He joined the war.'

His mother was suddenly silent. Not a sob. Barely even her breathing through the handset. The children on the other hand were suddenly sad. He patted as many heads as he could reach with his vacant hand and they looked up to him with their watering eyes.

He soldiered on. 'He says Orb sided with the Naturals. That they built something… Mobile Suits in Heliopolis. That's why it was attacked. And that Orb isn't neutral anymore. Not safe for Coordinators.'

'There may come a time…' said his mother, finally, before changing tracks. 'We came to Orb because we believed in its ideals, that we thought they'd accept Naturals and Coordinators alike and our family could stay together. We never dreamed…'

'It would turn out like this?' Kira guessed.

'Yes,' Caridad admitted. 'Kira…'

'Athrun thinks it would be safer for me at the Plants.' The words tumbled over themselves. He wasn't sure he wanted to go, even though he'd said yes in the Mument. But he didn't want Athrun slipping through his fingers again. And yet… He didn't want to leave his parents either. Or wind up entrenched in the war.

'Will you join ZAFT?' she asked.

'No,' he said immediately. 'I want to stay as far away from the war as possible.'

She laughed, though it sounded watery. 'The Plants is, ironically, the furthest from the war at this point. Earth's been pretty crazy…' Her voice trailed off again. 'Maybe, it is a good idea. If it keeps you out of the war.'

There was something in her voice. Some odd inflexion and Kira wondered if he'd missed something. Something Athrun and the Reverend hadn't been able to tell him. 'Mum…' he began.

'Stay safe, Kira,' she whispered. 'Whatever choice you make, we're okay with it, as long as you stay safe.'

'What did I – ' Kira began. The way his mother was speaking, it sounded like she'd picked up on what he hadn't said, and was implying…

'Hush,' she said softly. Her voice was trembling though. She was afraid. 'Just trust yourself. Do what you think is right… And stay safe. Promise?'

'I promise, Mum.' His eyes were watering. He could imagine her with equally watering eyes, standing with the phone and his father with a hand on her shoulder, supporting her.

And then it was his voice on the phone. 'Stay safe, Kira.' He echoed his wife. 'Whatever you do, stay safe.'

Normally, he would have laughed at their concern… But the idea of a war so close terrified him somehow and all he could do was agree and promise he would.

'We love you,' his parents said together.

And then he was listening to the dial tone. And he cried because he could call them as much as he wanted from the Plants, but he might never see them face to face again, if this war continued on.

Orb was supposed to be an Eden: a place where Naturals and Coordinators could co-exist like the humans they all were, in the end. But even his parents didn't ask him to come back home to them. Plants was the only place he could go.

The kids piled onto him, until the Reverend appeared some minutes later and scolded them for bolstering his injuries.

He'd barely felt them. Their weight had been too comfortable… but how long before the war reached these children on their secluded island as well?


End file.
